In healthy lungs, branched airways are lined by several epithelial cell
types, each of which is important in pulmonary homoeostasis. Little is known
about how the differentiation of these cell types is regulated. Wan et al. now
report that the winged-helix transcription factor Foxa2 regulates
alveolarisation and airway epithelial cell differentiation in the postnatal
mouse lung (see p.
953). When the researchers used a conditional deletion approach to
delete Foxa2 in developing mouse lungs, they saw airspace enlargement
within the lungs of the Fox2a-deleted mice together with hyperplasia
of the mucous-secreting goblet cells. This type of hyperplasia is associated
with chronic human lung diseases, and the researchers show that FOX2A
expression and goblet cell hyperplasia are inversely correlated in patients
with such diseases.

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